WHEN SEA BECOMES SKY — Review

Thought for the Day:

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” 
~ Pablo Picasso ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Characters just cannot be boring if you intend to keep readers engaged. HERE Amy Wilson has a really good (and fun!) post on Boring Characters at Good Story Company.

K. M. Weiland has a GREAT post HERE called How to Use Misdirection in Your Story for Greater Impact. It’s not too long, but pay special attention to the three links at the bottom. Do not miss them, especially the one named Deepen Your Story with Character Misdirection. Great stuff!

We all want our manuscripts to be tight and clean. HERE Michelle I. Mason has a good post on Easy Words & Phrases You Can Cut to Tighten Your Manuscript.

I seem to be over my latest round of Covid with a little lingering brain fog and extreme tiredness, but I have planned August to be downtime for recovery and writing. Due to those things, I will let someone else do the writing this week and leave you with some classic insults I found on the internet. These insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words. Insults then had some class!

”I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play. Bring a friend, if you have one.” George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill. “Cannot possibly attend first night, I will attend the second … if there is one.”- Winston Churchill, in response.

“He had delusions of adequacy.” Walter Kerr

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” Oscar Wilde

“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” Samuel Johnson

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” Mae West

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” Oscar Wilde

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts: for support rather than illumination.” – Andrew Lang

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”- Billy Wilder

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” Groucho Marx.

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” Winston Churchill

Sometimes when I am perusing the lists of books available for review, a title will just pop out at me and demand to be chosen. I feel like that is what happened with WHEN SEA BECOMES SKY. Then I went and read a summary and was even more intrigued. I realized I had read and reviewed an earlier book by Gillian McDunn (THESE UNLUCKY STARS) that I liked very much. (You can see my review HERE.) And I have another of her books sitting in my tottering TBR pile. (Sigh. So many books…) So I requested WHEN SEA BECOMES SKY from the San Francisco Book Review, and I was not disappointed. Here is the review I wrote for them.

Bex and her little brother, Davey, love to explore Pelican Island, especially the marsh at The Thumb, but things are different this summer. Davey will only talk to Bex, Bex has stopped being friends with Millie, and a company is planning to build a bridge to the island that will ruin The Thumb and knock down their favorite tree. They find a mysterious statue in the marsh that is being uncovered as the water drops due to a drought. They think finding out about the statue might be a way to stop the bridge, but the sculptor is a mysterious figure. They come up with a plan to find out about the statue, but they have to break rules and there is some danger.

Gillian McDunn has written a compelling story told in the pitch-perfect voice of twelve-year-old Bex. This complex story touches on themes of family, loss, grief, and environmental issues all woven into a bit of a mystery. The writing is lovely and heartfelt and very believable, probably due to McCann’s own life experience. Readers will be captured by these well-crafted characters and their touching story. This book deserves wide readership well beyond the intended middle-grade audience.

Please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.